It feels like a strange feedback loop or something. People memorize algorithms to pass interviews, instructors help students memorize them to help them get jobs, then once they get into the jobs they start asking interviewees about the questions to check if they were paying attention in class, or something.
Ah, the good old days, before ChatGPT aced all such interview questions.
Do people still use these interview questions? My most recent interview was more of a "How good has your German become since last time we worked together?" situation.
{Less of personal experience but more of a anecdotal observation} I see the same pattern in hiring. Those who know DSA, build systems that cost less overal.
So maybe it's better not to throw DSA right out out the window, but also not stick to either ends of the spectrum?
Uhmmm... I'd describe what happened there as lucky. I find the argument that understanding what you're trading is unnecessary pretty difficult to take seriously.
Someone mentioned me to the boss. I get called in for an interview. We chat for 15 minutes. I’m then “hired” for six weeks full paid work, but by default after those six weeks I was done. No more hours scheduled. Unless he said he wanted me to stay on and I said I wanted to stay on.
What I liked is the subtle change in expectations caused by the default to be that you don’t stay hired after some trial/training period. What I did was check in on how they felt about me and got a good feel for if I needed to keep looking for jobs or not. And if I liked working there.
I guess you could describe it as a very short contract with the idea that there’s a full time role meant to be filled.
I can imagine many ways in which this can be exploited or gets ridiculous with how many months of training some companies need. I think it’s their own loss being so inflexible or untrusting or acting in bad faith.
I believe software engineering basically has these in the form of "internships". At least, at a lot of UK companies, internships lead to jobs (often after graduation).
Not the same for senior role of course, but I don't think I've come across any SW company that does trial periods for senior engineers... If I have, I either wasn't aware or don't remember them.
I wonder what some solutions might be?
make a society of software developers, akin to the bar association and so on, and have developers enter the society to show a certain bar of skill.